And They Sleep
by SweetDragonSeeker
Summary: This is how it was but not how it's supposed to be, and she misses gunpowder and the echo of a heartbeat.


**Yeah, Final Fantasy is totally mine...not. Yep, nope. **

**More Final Fantasy VII, focusing on Yuffie this time, with a little bit of Vincent because I love them together. :) Not entirely sure I like this, but it's better than anything else I've come up with lately, and I kinda like the flow of it. Also, if you guys like, I might do more chapters with other characters or something; feel free to make a suggestion. **

**This is set from CC all the way to DOC. Enjoy, yeah? **

**SSS**

When she's young in Wutai, before Shinra comes, she sleeps on thin pallets on the floor, with flat little pillows, and she loves it because it's home and how things have always been and how they're supposed to be, and when she wakes in the middle of the night she always flips the pillow over, because her face is hot and her arms are cold and the pillow is the same on opposite sides, and she smiles beneath the breeze fluttering the curtains at her window.

After Shinra comes and she leaves Wutai to search for a way to restore all that's been broken, she sleeps in the trees where she's safe from the forest prowlers, and her legs dangle over the sides of the branches and she clutches her shuriken in her hand, because death can come on wings as sure as on legs, and she's not ready to die.

Then she meets AVALANCHE, and from then on she sleeps in tents instead of trees, as alone as possible in quarters that she has to share; she lies down as far away from her tent mate as possible and sprawls out to take up as much room as her small frame will allow, and anyone who invades her space is pushed away, because she isn't trustworthy and therefore she trusts none.

It takes weeks after she steals the materia for any of them to volunteer to share a tent with her again, and she fells more alone than she ever has, and she curls up in the corner to take up as little space as possible with their disapproval and distrust pressing down on her shoulders, and listens to the others breathe deep into the night.

Things are just starting to get better when Aeris dies, and it all seems to shatter all over again with her death, and she spends the nights after that sobbing and shaking in her sleep until an arm wraps around her and the nightmares are driven out, chased away by heat and the smell of gunpowder and leather, and from then on she sleeps curled against Vincent's chest, wrapped in his cloak and listening to the hollow beat of his heart echo against his ribs.

When they separate to find their reason to fight, she doesn't sleep until she reaches Wutai, and then she sleeps on top of the pagoda where she can see all of Wutai, all it was and is and will be again, and when she drifts off into slumber she dreams of red, of pagodas and blood and tortured eyes, and she wakes shivering and resolved in the scarlet glow of the dawn.

Evacuating Midgar takes all the strength she has, and that night she falls asleep with her arms around Vincent's waist and her face buried in the hollow of his shoulder, and she clings tightly even in slumber, because he scared her, and he is one thing she knows she doesn't want to lose, and when she finally rouses she tells him that the next time he scares her like that she'll kill him herself and he gives her a slight smile over his collar and says nothing.

When the battle's over and they go their separate ways, she goes home and tries to go back to thin pallets and flat pillows, and she finds herself unable to sleep because this is how it was but not how it's supposed to be, and she misses gunpowder and the echo of a heartbeat, and finally she buys a gun and a box of bullets and shoots at the trees outside her window until the room is saturated with the smell and the neighbors are hiding in their homes, and then she sleeps, her slumber lasting only until the breeze sweeps the scent away.

It's Reeve who calls to tell her about Kadaj and his brothers, though how he knew she's not sure, and she's ready to leave the moment the Highwind arrives to collect her; the battle they fight smacks strongly of old times, bringing them together just when their bonds were wearing thin, and that night she sleeps in a booth in 7th Heaven, cradled against Vincent's chest with his face in her hair because he hasn't relearned how to sleep without her either, and she basks in the peace she finds in his arms.

She's back to sleeping in the trees when she goes to do recon work for Reeve, and it's better than Wutai but still not right, so she does the best she can and spends most nights working until she can stay awake no longer and exhaustion forces her to slumber deep enough that she forgets to dream.

Then Vincent vanishes, and she hardly sleeps at all, staying close to 7th Heaven when she's not out searching herself, hoping for news, and when Tifa sends her to bed because she's so exhausted that she can hardly stand she curls into a ball under all the blankets she can find and clutches the Cerberus chain in her fingers and wakes with tears running down her cheeks and Tifa standing worriedly in the doorway.

Her only regret is that Shelke finds him first, and the moment she sees him she throws herself at him and bashes him with her shuriken and calls him every bad name she can think of until he wraps his arms around her to hold her still, and that night she sleeps wrapped around him, breathing him in and holding on as tight as she can so that he can't disappear again, and the next morning she wakes to find him watching her with a small smile gracing his face.

**SSS**

**Yep. Kinda made me happy to post something with more than 400 words. Anyways, suggestions are loved, reviews adored, and flames ignored. Thanks! ~Seeker**


End file.
